Rainy Day Fun

I stumbled upon a "genius" idea for rainy day fun out of sheer desperation!  One day my kids were fighting constantly fighting and it was too wet to go outside.  I was trying to get dinner ready and need something...ANYTHING...to occupy them until Daddy made it home from a late meeting.  They had been playing with the dry erase board, so I quickly invented a "really cool game" for the kids.  You know what they say....Necessity is the mother of invention! Since today is yucky and cold and rainy here, I thought I'd share in case any other parents have kids with spring fever and sibling rivalry. :)  We used a dry erase board, but you could just as easily use a piece of posterboard or cardboard.

Supplies needed:
Dry erase board (or posterboard)
Marker
Cotton Balls
Piece of paper for keeping score (sneaky way to work on their addition facts!)

Draw a grid on your board or paper.  Do NOT make the squares/rectangles all the same size.  The more uneven, the better.   I actually let the kids draw the lines. 

In each space, put a point value.  We made our smaller spaces worth more and our bigger spaces worth less.  A few giant ones were even zero.

Each player gets 2 cotton balls.  On his/her turn, the child tosses the 2 cotton balls (underhand) onto the board and adds up the points of the spaces he or she lands on.  How far away he or she stands is up to you. Just remember that cotton balls don't go very far!  We decided when we played that, if the ball landed on a line between two points, they could throw it again.  If the ball went OFF the board, that cotton ball was forfeited for that turn.  

Then, after the cotton balls are scored, the kids made tally marks on a separate board (or paper) to keep track of points.

When we finished, my older child had to add up the points.  We had tally categories for 1 pt, 2 pts, 5 pts, and 10 pts (the values we had on the board).  She had to multiply the tallies by the value and then add them all together.   Great (fun) way to teach and work on addition and multiplication.  My little one had never learned tallies, so big sis taught him all about making the cross marks for 5s, etc.

Adapt it how it works for your kids!  Instead of #s you could use sight words, letters and sounds, number recognition, etc.  They could yell out what their cotton ball lands on for those.  Enjoy!  Be creative!  Stay out of the yucky weather!